Symbian announced a new version of its OS today. Version 7.0s was formalled announced at Exposium '03. The new version has already been delivered to liscensees. New features include new networking capabilities including multiple PDP (allow several network connections at once), MIDP 2.0 (more standard J2ME hopefully!), and Greek and Hebrew language support.

This new release is probably best seen as a small step. It ties up a few loose ends, and gears Symbian up for the next big step to version 7.5 or 8.0 possibly some time next year,

How soon we will see this on phones in more open to debate. The SX1 has MIDP 2.0, but not trhough 7.0s. It will take a while for the new release to trickle down, but devices using it may appear by the end of the year.


Press Release:

Symbian launches Symbian OS v7.0s at Exposium03
Symbian OS enhanced with new networking capabilities, Java MIDP 2.0, multimedia framework & new language variants
London, UK - 29 April 2003 – Symbian Ltd today announce the launch of the latest version of Symbian OS, the global open industry standard operating system for advanced mobile phones. Symbian OS is licensed by the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturers including Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson.

The development of this latest Symbian OS release, Symbian OS v.7.0s, demonstrates that Symbian continues to deliver Symbian OS in step with the needs of Symbian OS licensees and the broader mobile industry. Symbian has delivered Symbian OS 7.0s to its licensees earlier this year. Symbian OS licensees will make announcements regarding products based on Symbian OS 7.0s in due course.

Symbian has enhanced Symbian OS in four particular areas:

Telephony and Networking – Symbian OS has always had market-leading telephony and networking capabilities. To enhance this further, Symbian OS v7.0s implements Multiple PDP contexts and a Quality of Service framework.

Multiple PDP contexts allow users of mobile phones based on Symbian OS v.7.0s to access more than one network service at the same time and with varying QoS. Users can access email whilst simultaneously surfing the web or downloading an application. For network operators, this allows multiple, simultaneous revenue streams from a single handset, each with a different QoS and each with a different charging model.

Symbian’s Quality of Service (QoS) framework allow phones to manage network connections intelligently, ensuring the best possible user experience in any given situation. For example, the phone may provide a high bandwidth guaranteed network connection for browsing and a low priority “best effort” network connection for downloading emails. This results in a great browsing experience for the user whilst emails are downloaded in the background.

Java MIDP 2.0 – Symbian has upgraded its Java implementation to Java MIDP v2.0, enabling more capable Java applications than previously e.g. games applications which exploit Bluetooth and messaging capabilities. Also, Symbian OS v7.0s deploys Sun’s new Java virtual machine which enables significant improvements in Java application performance. These enhancements improve the user’s experience of using Symbian OS phones as well as encouraging over-the-air download of Java applications offered by network operators and other third parties.

Multimedia – Symbian has introduced a lightweight, multi-threaded multimedia framework (MMF) which enables high-performance audio, video and imaging capabilities for Symbian OS applications. The MMF is designed to meet the needs of high performance media-centric applications such as video players, midi engines and particularly games.

Languages – Symbian OS v7.0s now offers support for Arabic and Hebrew languages.

“Symbian continues to enhance Symbian OS as the global open industry standard for advanced mobile phones by delivering timely enhancements to Symbian OS in step with needs of Symbian OS licensees and the wider mobile industry,” said Morten Graubelle, VP Product line Management, Symbian. “The enhancements deployed in Symbian OS v7.0s will enable application developers and network operators to offer more advanced, entertaining and productivity-enhancing applications, content and services, making Symbian OS phones even more attractive to users.”

- Ends -

About Symbian
Symbian is a software licensing company which develops and licenses Symbian OS, the global open industry standard operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones.

Symbian has licensed Symbian OS to the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers including Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. Publicly announced products based on Symbian OS include the BenQ P30, Samsung SGH-D700, Siemens SX-1, NTT DoCoMo FOMA F2051 built by Fujitsu, Sony Ericsson P800 Smartphone, Nokia 9200 Communicator range as well as the 7650, 3650 and N-Gage.

Symbian has its global headquarters in London, United Kingdom with development sites in Europe and Asia. Symbian’s shareholders are Ericsson, Panasonic, Motorola, Nokia, Psion, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson.

For further information about Symbian, please see www.symbian.com